Sorbetist course

The sorbetist in the confectionery industry, employed in the manufacture of ice creams and sorbets, a cold spoon dessert considered the progenitor of fruit ice cream; it is a semi-dense preparation based on sugar syrup, fruit juice or pulp or even wines and liqueurs. The existence of the sorbet is documented in the texts of classical antiquity. In Rome, the emperor Nero brought ice from the Apennines for this purpose. In Sicily the Arabs learned to use the snow of Etna mixed with sea salt as a eutectic to keep the temperature of the sorbet low during its processing (given the absence of alternative refrigeration systems). Similar methods were used in the Cadore area where ice is especially cheap and readily available. In this context, the invention of a fisherman from Aci Trezza, a village north of Catania, is considered relevant. He created the first prototype of an ice cream maker, exploiting the eutectic characteristics of the snow salt mixture. A nephew of his became famous, a certain Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, who at the beginning of the seventeenth century brought the invention of his ancestor to Paris, giving rise to the first coffee in Europe (Le Procope) and to the ice cream industry. The structure of a sorbet, like that of an ice cream, is particularly complex and contains all three phases of matter with solid, liquid and gaseous components. We can describe it as small ice crystals and air bubbles dispersed in a sugar syrup at sub-zero temperatures. Ice is undoubtedly the key ingredient.